If I can send e-mail from my computer, I will. My phone is for those rare times where I have a pressing need to e-mail someone, but don't have any other way to do it.
I could see some use in smart-home devices to do things that "always" need done, and that don't need a connection outside of the home. Like "if anyone's home, keep it between 65 and 80 degrees, depending on humidity and delta with the outdoor temperature".
But I've never seen an example of something that I'd call anything more than a minor convenience, at best. Will I use it when it's ubiquitous in society? Meh, probably. But I don't feel the same excitement about it that others seem to.
Being able to change your light intensity a few shades (more than a manual light intensity switch) is a far cry from being able to send e-mail in critical situations from your phone. Even then I'd say e-mail on your phone just isn't that useful; your example to show "this totally isn't a gimmick" could have been much better.
i'd say there's a substantial difference between having a computer that takes up a large room and needs wires, a PC that is small enough to fit on a desk and still needs wires, and a computer you can put in your pocket and doesn't need wires.
> remarkable! how did people ever live without this before?
In a sense, they didn't! When you're outside, the sun and sky already provide "a million different shades and intensities" of ambient light, depending on the time of day and the weather. Those fancy colored light systems could be seen as replicating that variety indoors.
A thousand different unnecessary components to break and require fixing. Some people will like this, but I think it's going to cause more headache than it helps.
>Try to imagine a house where there's a thousand different machines just there to make your life nicer.
Now try to imagine all the gaping security holes emanating from your house. And oh man it's gonna suck when the remote server goes down and your thermostat can't phone home so you're stuck at 55F during the winter
Why would a "smart home" need to interact with the outside world? Most applications cited in the story certainly don't require it, and if they do, there's no technical reason they need to be connected directly to the internet.
If people are too hesitant to give up their homes' security and privacy to corporations, some company will eventually come up with an open-source self-hosted solution that doesn't suffer from those issues.
There are already a bunch of open solutions. You can self host OpenHAB or Home Assistant right now and integrate many different devices from many different manufacturers using open protocols like Z-Wave.
In such a case neither the devices nor the main controller need to phone home.
There'll always be people who lose their data because they don't have proper backups, people who lose control of their iot devices because they are open to and require an internet connection and people who die in a car crash because they think they are sober enough.
There are always tons of ways to make stupid decisions, a small amount of research usually helps.
> Who is all this engineering effort for Everybody.
Sure right now philips hue cost hundreds of dollars, but that price is going to drop seriously. The price of smart-everything is going to drop.
Try to imagine a house where there's a thousand different machines just there to make your life nicer.